Seminar V: Marxism and Structuralism – Moses Finley
and Michael Grant

This week’s seminar is about two historians who illustrate important trends
in the development of ideas about the Greco-Roman world in the middle of the twentieth
century – in particular a marked tendency to limit the role of human agency
in history, to stress the constraints imposed by a given society’s cultural
systems, technologies and institutions. Though few historians during this period
would have described themselves as Marxist (or Marxisant, ‘left-leaning’)
many were influenced by the theory of historical materialism developed by Karl
Marx (1818–83).

According to Marx the potential of any given civilisation – its capacity
to negotiate its way through crises and to make the most of its circumstances – is
determined by its ‘mode of production’. By ‘mode of production’ is
meant both the technologies (‘the means of production’) that are employed
to meet its needs and the divisions of labour (‘the relations of production’)
which they encourage. Marxists believe that the mode of production determines
a society’s system of property and class (e.g. slavery, feudalism or capitalism)
and its prevailing ideologies (be they political, religious or philosophical).
They see the emergence of new and more potent modes of production as the fundamental
force for change in history: new technologies and new and more ‘efficient’ ways
of ‘organising’ work enrich and empower hitherto new groups, permitting
them to challenge the owners of older, obsolete, systems of production. Thus,
new classes emerge to overthrow hitherto dominant élites in violent struggles,
leading to the next stage of social evolution.

Structuralists also focus on the constraining influence of hidden forces, but
whereas Marxists stress the primacy of economic factors, ‘structuralists’ emphasise
the influence of institutional, ideological and especially inner, cultural and
mental, frameworks. In their view these structures (and their interactions) profoundly
limit the capacity of human agents to comprehend the situations in which they find
themselves and to act outside their constraints. In the 1960s, when this tendency
to diminish human agency was at its height, the label ‘structuralist’ was
adopted by a particular school of French intellectuals led by the anthropologist
Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908–). These thinkers identified the sociologist
Emile Durkheim (1858–1917) and the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913)
as their intellectual forefathers. For present purposes, however, it is important
to note that there is a long tradition of historical analysis which emphasises
the ‘channelling effects’ of constitutional, ideological and cultural
factors, and that this approach is entirely compatible with political and social
conservatism.

Though he refrained from making explicit his theoretical affinities, the influence
of Marxist historical thought is obvious in the work of Moses I. Finley (1912–86),
not least in the article which is the main subject of this week’s seminar.
Its influence is especially evident in The Ancient Economy (1973), a
series of lectures in which he
set out a powerful vision of ancient city as a parasitic organism which consumed
the surpluses generated within its immediate hinterland. That is, in sharp
contrast to Rostovtzeff and Pirenne, Finley diminished the role of long-distance
trade in the Roman economy, emphasising instead the part played by the ownership
of labour in the form of slaves. (These lectures were
delivered, it should be noted, at much the same time as his Manpower article
was published.) Born Moses Finkelstein, Finley taught at the City College of
New York (1934–42) and at Rutgers University (1948–52). Like many American
intellectuals who were attacked for their left-wing sympathies by Senator Joseph
McCarthy’s
Government Operations Committee, Finley fled the United States emigrating to
England in 1954. He taught at Cambridge from 1955, becoming professor of ancient
history (1970–79) and later master of Darwin College (1976–82).

Though by no means a structuralist work in the narrower sense of the term and
though it was written for the general reader by a retired academic, The Fall
of the Roman Empire (1976) by Michael Grant (1914–2004) reflects the period
in which it was written. It is ‘structuralism-lite’. A classicist
and numismatist of some distinction and many years’ experience, Grant was
alert to scholarly trends in the study of the Roman Empire. He had taught at
Trinity College Cambridge, before becoming a professor of humanity (i.e. Latin)
at Edinburgh University (1946–59). His ideas about the usefulness of the discipline
echo those of J. B. Bury: he thought ancient history ‘worth studying in
its own right, without any consideration of modern analogies’, and that ‘without
Latin, people are handicapped because they do not understand their past, and cannot
therefore effectively plan their futures’ (emphasis added).

Worksheet Questions

How does Moses Finley’s idea of how the Empire’s society and
economy worked differ from those of Rostovtzeff and Pirenne?

Explain Moses Finley’s theory of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire.
What does Moses Finley believe was the fundamental cause of the later Roman
Empire’s inability to resist the pressures upon its frontiers?

Identify the ways in which, according to Michael Grant, the practices and
rituals of the imperial court contributed to the decline and fall of
the Roman Empire. What are the distinctive features of Grant’s theory?

What do the arguments of Finley and Grant say about the uses to which the ‘End
of the Ancient World’ has been put in modern times?

Additional Reading

(a) Moses Finley and the Marxist Tradition of Later Roman History

Finley, M. I., Economy and Society in Ancient Greece, ed. B. D. Shaw
and R. P. Saller (Harmondsworth, 1981). A collection of Finley’s essays
which includes an introductory account of the man and his work by the editors.
LQK.

Finley, M. I., The Use and Abuse of History (London, 1975; Harmondsworth,
1990). L7.